Tag Archives: smkf

My Hootsuite alum comrade pal Adarsh Pallian has yet another start-up biz — this one is a travel-expense related company called Trippeo. He published this article (with assistance from the charming Katie Fritz) in which explores some of my marketing-fu. Shared below for the record with gratitude and appreciation.

Can’t buy me love: A renegade marketing pro’s tips for making an impression

One of Vancouver’s tech-scene’s radicals used to tout the “cheap and cheerful” effect. Instead of relying on the filet mignon to impart success and influence, renegade marketer Dave Olson preferred to take his clients to underground shows and then chat business over a bowl of ramen. The man knows what he’s doing: after coming on as Director of Marketing for Hootsuite in 2010, he helped grow the user-base to 8 million, and was integral to the development of the quirky, lovable brand.

Of course, in those early days, Hootsuite wasn’t exactly rolling in the cash. Dave and his team needed to find ways to make an impression… while pinching those expensable pennies. These are a few of my favorite cheap-n-cheerful moments from the Master:

Host a dinner party

Personal AND cost-effective. One of the most memorable moments of Hootsuite’s inaugural SXSW trip was the barbeque that they hosted. Austin, of course, is pretty intense about their barbeque, so the conversation was built in. The event was inexpensive, easy to coordinate, and most importantly, an authentic place to chat with potential clients and investors.

Mobilize volunteers

Dave loved to bring enthusiastic people together around a cause, be it a Hootsuite “Hoot-Up,” a day of renegade marketing school, or a community of podcasters. Volunteers have been indispensable to Hootsuite’s success: they have translated websites, thrown parties, shared tips and tactics, and pointed out bugs. In return, Dave and his team acted as references and champions for these volunteers, helping them gain experience and land professional roles.

Say thank you, in person

One thing Dave liked to encourage was “going analogue”. He knew that facetime was the ultimate impression – no number of Mentions, Likes, or Upvotes can replicate a genuine “thanks.” Can’t be there in person? Dave was a big proponent of the quick video that included his team waving and saying thank you! A little goes a long way.

Want more stories from DaveO? He’s logged a great many of his talks on Youtube. You can find his channel right here.

Ever since performing alongside my Mom in old folks’ homes as a little leprechaun, I’ve always seemed close to a stage, a lectern or front of a classroom — although it’s never been exactly my job per se. Though working at various high-tech-focused start-ups and participating in the surrounding creative community as a whole, I’ve come across a number of opportunities to share my stories through presentations in front of groups of all kinds. And throughout, i’ve challenged myself with audiences, topics and methods to “increase the degree of difficulty” and, as a result, become more a master of this craft.

I’ve spoken to conferences of Financial Services Ombudsman’s, destination tourism pros, two solo “core conversations” at Austin’s South by Southwest filled with the smartest, techiest people around who i managed to engage and educate despite using no technology expect boardgames, onto conferences for both the dying daily newspaper industry and the still plucky alternative newsweeklies, plus telling stories of revolutions at Toronto’s NxNE after a rock and roll train trip in which i mentored bands, and all other speaking series who would give me stage time including 4 times at Pecha Kucha (including headlining the Vancouver All-Star edition), a killer TEDx romp, dozens of endearing student groups, and all sorts of others.

I’ve never been taught how to do this and I’ve never really read a book about public speaking. I also don’t watch others too closely as i want to create my own way of presenting.

So, for what its worth, here are tactics and distillations of what works for me. I expect you’ll remix, re-envision and re-create your own way and share on with others.

Mantra: Edutainment and Inspiration

First of all, no matter what kind of presentation you’re going to give to whatever kind of audience, you have to think of your chance as a little bit of performance art, not a “talk” not a “presentation” — this is storytime. You’re there to entertain as well as to educate. But there is also a piece of inspiration, that something more that’s going to get people talking about you and what you had to say, which will of course turn into more gigs and more success for your tour or other aspirations. Remember this as you read on. Entertain, Educate, Inspire.

Slides Are Not The Talk

Think about your goal, it isn’t just to tell people about your topic. They can find the information in other forms elsewhere. Your goal is to find a little bit of a state of flow with your audience and take them on a journey. Along the way, they pick up nuggets of knowledge.

To commit to this throughout your talk, I give them something more than they’re expecting.

Here’s how to get them there:

First of all your slides are not your talk. Over the last bunch of years as various presentation software tools emerged with handy pre-planned templates of bulleted lists and flashy transitions, public speaking in the corporate world has (often) turned into reading from bulleted lists over a blue marbled background on a dreaded PowerPoint slide and trying to interpret poorly displayed graphs and apologize for bad clip art. This is ridiculous and should never be done. In fact, this destroys storytelling and i’d suggest is amongst the poorest ways to share information. The inspiration is lost, the entertainment gone in a series of groans from the audience as they spend the time checking emails before flaccid clapping at the end.

Instead, there are many different ways to augment and add a mixed media component to your talk if you choose. Do you play accordion? Bring that up for a little bit. When I saw Josh Fox, a documentary filmmaker sharing stories about the negative impact of “fracking” on health and communities, he lightened the heavy topic with a banjo accompaniment. Unexpected and changed the mood and made for a talk no one spaced out on.

Either way, don’t depend on your slides. Let me give you an example: When I spoke at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas,I knew the audience would include many of the most digitally curious and technologically connected people really on the planet. They’ve all seen the gadgets and gizmos and they have all sat through loads of talks at dozens of conferences that pop up for this industry. So I knew I had to do a little something different.

So instead of a slide deck and a microphone, I went a little “acoustic” as it were and brought an old, timey suitcase (made in Alcatraz with prisoner labour) filled with various props for a talk called “Fck Stats, Make Art.” Some of props were collage art, some hardback books, a smoking jacket, postcards, letters and artifacts all arranged in the suitcase as it corresponded with my talk.

This gave a real intimate tactile experience, as I was able to interact and walk around with these props through the audience which building anticipation about “what would come out next”. People could get an up-close look, pass it around amongst themselves and even participate in an interactive component where they reached into an envelope to pull out a card — the kept the cards as a momento which also provided a reason to come say hello to me and ask more about the image on the cards or just get a signature. These artifacts all supported the educational points which would otherwise lived as a bulleted list on a PowerPoint slide, but instead the “analog” components kept the audience involved in a very tactile way that they weren’t expecting.

It was so much fun that i recreated the vibe two years later at the same conference in which i channelled Mark Twain and shared stories about crowd-sourcing while using Tom Sawyer’s story of white washing the fence as the over-arching metaphor and then articulated the examples of projects with boardgames boards which were liberated and decorated with artifacts. I could stroll the room, in smoking jacket and pipe, while giving up close views who were eager to see the details rather than rolling eyes at a fancy slide transition.

Make Awsum Slides

I often times do use slides, so don’t get me wrong. But these images are meant to be wallpaper, decorations, and inspiration behind you, not to be the notes or the cliff notes of what you’re talking about.

My usual style for slides is simple: one interesting picture which i can build mystery and metaphor around (stretched and bled out to the edges) and three words (usually in white san serif on a black bar towards the bottom of the image. I keep the slides simple and this also gives me a chance to dig into my own photo collection from over the years and pull out all those weird photos that somehow you can tie a story to which has nothing to do with the original image.

My Mom scanned in thousands of childhood photos (including all the dorky ones you’d never want anyone to see) which provided me a rights-cleared stock archive of interesting images which no filters or disclaimers required.

Another way to prepare slides it to “papercraft” each into unique works of art which can “storyboard: your points out with a variety of imagery. And these images all act as reminders of the stories and points to cover without relying on cue cards or teleprompters.

In some cases (i.e. SXSW) when i was in a more intimate sized room, i could walk around or pass around the paper artifacts. The audience were gentle as they realized the care of the construction and could “find their favorite,” take a photo to share because they experienced a physical connection to this information which is usually created and displayed digitally and coldly. Holding something made from scissors and glue creates an entirely new emotional reaction and sensory hit which harkens back to early days when we all used seemingly rudimentary materials for art projects.

The other benefit for you as s speaker (besides having a set of wicked paperpoint slides in your files) is: when preparing the slides, we easily fall into a state of clear understanding of your talk. You’ve spent an hour or more on each slide, so you no longer need the scaffolding of cue cards, the stories are self-evident in the art you’ve created.

When presenting the same talk in a larger venue requiring slide (Pecha Kucha), my pal, the noted photographer @kk, took photos of me in his brick walled loft holding each sign. My hands, my sweater, the wall, and occasionally a bit of my beard appears but, this too allows the audience to see the analog/digital remix process which went into the creation.

Even though I work (often anyhow) in social software technology, and I’m often talking about software, I very, very, rarely ever show a screenshot unless it’s to support a story — and heaven forbid — please never add another pie chart or graph going up and to the right. Those results can be a great thing to tell in your story, or pass along resources that people can download later, but don’t burn a slide on a visual which has lost meaning due to overuse.

Overall, the sentiment that “serious technical information needs to be presented in a linear, serious way which we’ve always done (since Office 95 anyhow)…” to be is simply wrong. I’ve seen engineers, programmers and scientists be candid, insightful, and even funny by tailoring their remarks to the audience in a compelling, calculated manner using stories the attendees could relate to.

Let Robots Help

It used to be at the beginning of talks, the moderator would politely ask, “Please turn off your cellphones, pay attention, and put those laptops down.” But i protest! I want you using devices and amplifying my thoughts and sharing the bits you found useful. Whether they are taking notes, sending tweets, live blogging, mind mapping or drawing pictures, taking photos, whatever — encourage the audience to get up and participate.

Sure at some conferences, there are people who are tuned out and checking their e-mail — I don’t even know why they show up, or others who may get prickly at the rights and atmosphere of capturing media (i.e. they have an “official” photographer who is now where to be seen after taking one shot, posting it a low-resolution and adding a copyright watermark on it, Forget that, i’ll take the snaps from the audience so encourage people to pull out their phones: Ustream in their buddies for a few minutes,;take some Instagrams; and, send out some Tweets.

Make sure you declare a hashtag for your talk. (If you don’t know what this is, that’s the little Twitter thing with a number sign in front of it that allows people to tie into the conversation easily). I often use #daveostory or something simple and not confusing. Also consider displaying a Twitter feed right alongside of your talk where people can add in their comments and their thoughts, and add another dimension to your talk. This scares some presenters and some event promoters as a crappy talk can turn the audience unruly in a hurry and embarrass, insult or disagree with the presenter. Set some ground rules, have a moderator and remind the audience that there “dickhead” comments are public and you’ll be shaming them later.

You’ve heard a million times that people fear public speaking more than… well anything… so the curmudgeon in the audience is likely just letting their inner-jerk out. Roll with it as the benefits of having dozens of hundreds of tweets with your #hashtag and name and thoughts contained within are too valuable to pass up. Suddenly your talk is sorta live everywhere and you’ll know from the reactions, what points hit home and what fell flat.

Wear Your Uniform

I’ve read articles positing that you are supposed to dress “a little bit nicer” than your audience is expected to dress — you are hired help remember. The audience might be at a retreat so they might be business casual, but you should take a step up with a tie and polished shoes.

I don’t really subscribe to this assertion (though I’m sure it rings true for many) because I think any public appearance you make in a (professional or otherwise) capacity as a speaker is an opportunity to show who you really are. Ergo: Show your real personality and show what kind of character you are. What would you usually wear if you were just going out and about on another day out? You don’t want to be too schleppy or casual but think about it this way. Soldiers have their uniform. Athletes have their uniform. And you as a public speaker should have your uniform, too.

In my case, and also there is a mental thing to it where you never have to worry about what am I going to wear and there is some good luck that rubs off in those accoutrements you add to yourself on “game day.” In my case, I have an old timey trilby-style hat which goes with me everywhere when I go to speaking gigs and has become part of the shtick. When I have that hat on I know it’s game on, right.

Now I also had a red velvet jacket that mysteriously went missing at South by Southwest this year and I have worn that for the last whole bunch of speaking gigs. So I hope not all my magic is lost with that! In the meantime, i often seek unique pieces which will be comfy on stage, photograph well, and accentuate who i am rather than being “just another tech dude in a off the rack grey suit.” Boring.

One of my favorite public speakers is global political columnist, Gwynne Dyer. He always seems to wear a beat up old brown leather jacket — the jacket has taken on a bit of a personality of its own and become part of the crowd’s expectations of his brand, although he would likely loathe to admit this.

This comfort of having a uniform removes another decision to make while you are visualizing your talk and prepping to inspire the audience.

Don’t Re-introduce Yourself

I can’t stand it when the first impression a speaker makes is talking about themselves. In my mind, your time in stage isn’t a chance to give your comprehensive bio or C.V., you’ve just been introduced where they shared the relevant info. Also, any savvy person who is truly engaged in the event have likely taken the time to look you up and get your whole dossier.

They’ve read the program, they’ve seen your website, checked your Linkedin, and maybe poked around on Twitter, Youtube or elsewhere. So don’t go up and say, “Thanks for the kind introduction Bob, I’m really glad to be asked to come speak here at this event. As Bob just pointed out, I am the Senior Vice President for Widget Analysis and after 17 years of doing that I’ve also did this and so we will get into that a little bit. So, today I’m going to be talking about…” Everyone already knows that, right. So get right into the point.

Also be genuine about why you are excited to be here speaking. I often choose speaking events in industries in which I’m curious (news media, tourism, youth education for example) so explain where you’re coming from and — assuming you genuinely are — tell them you are here to learn from them, ergo: What challenges do their industry face? What are their misconceptions about new technologies? How are they adapting social tools to fix business problems?

Non-linear Story with Characters

The Greeks got it right centuries ago about the secret to good storytelling is starting somewhere right in the action. Don’t start at the beginning, start just before something terrible goes wrong and work back to it. In other words, start just before the end, then go flashback to the beginning and wind it all up in the end in a way they don’t expect.

Now, this attention to structure may sound more appropriate for dramatic productions or creative writing but this is powerful skill and something you want to think about as a speaker.

Instead of starting them off by re-introducing yourself, begin with a story — not a short anecdote but instead start a meta-narrative which may extend through the whole prezo. Talk about a real case scenario, situation or study with characters that they can get interested in. When speaking for HootSuite, i’d often start with a current event (Egyptian revolution, Japanese earthquake) and how we found ourselves involved — albeit inadvertently — and the unique point of view we saw with our social media tool. This context would keep the topic relevant and also allow me to demonstrate logistical ways to use the tools without having to resort to abstract examples.

By setting up this non-linear story framework, you can share the important points and content with them but you’ll take them on a journey by establishing a context in which to discuss these topics. By weaving a story through the talk, and adhering to the same characters, and real examples, you’ll build interest and credibility.

If you are planning on talking about the changing role of exports from Eastern Europe to South America with Poland joining the EU (I’m making this up), don’t start with, “In 1967 the trade statistics show…” Instead start with introducing the characters: who are the people on the ground; who are the government officials; or, who are the characters who are going to weave in and out of your talk to support the annotations in your talk.

I saw the English folk/punk-singer, Billy Bragg and he did a great job of weaving a story in and out of his in-between song banter throughout the evening. Rather than mumbled “thanks” he he kept on bringing up the band the 80s new wave band OMD who are out on a tour as well and they seem to be showing up in the same city as Billy every night at the club down the road.

Sure enough, this was the case in Vancouver and he was grousing about different things about how they have better busses, they’re always getting the better venues and worked them into all sorts of different context including how he met the Queen and somehow OMD came into that story. So, it was a great way to kind a keep of forward momentum going with your talk.

You can do the same, no matter who your audience is, you just have to find out who they are so you can build this rapport.

I was recently tapped to get involved with the Bootup Garage – “a new space dedicated to startup founders and technology hackers.” Initially, they wanted me to get involved as a Mentor – but I thought, why not host a series of social marketing talks instead.

Social Marketing Kung Fu

Titled Social Marketing Kung Fu – the series went through four for belt levels.

Startups need a great story and they need to understand their audience, so they can effectively reach, connect and learn from them.

Dave Olson is a master storyteller, Community Marketing Director for Hootsuite, and has been helping startups tell their stories on the Internet since 1996. On January 26, Dave will kick off a series of social marketing talks at Bootup Garage to help startup founders learn the art of effectively creating, telling and spreading their story.

Check out this summary Bootup put together on the event – including notes. A few notes I’ve put together can be found on my Tumblr.

Dave Olson’s first SMKF talk at Bootup was jam packed with a bunch of practical nuggets to help founders get started including the importance of listening in building your social marketing strategy.

On March 30th, get ready to earn your social marketing yellow belt! Dave O is coming back to Bootup to explain just what it means to “listen everywhere” and show us how we can use social media dashboards to connect with customers, build communities, and keep our ears on the competition.

Customers are part of your culture. By inviting them to participate in your campaigns and community, you can speed progress, gain candid market insight, and have some fun. In this seminar, Dave will share tips about wrangling your passionate users to help with specific tasks for mutual benefit. Tips and tactics will include: understanding motivations, providing rewards, and organizing disappearing task teams while avoiding “cat herding” and conflicts.

A Little on the Bootup Garage

From the Bootup website:

The Bootup Garage is a new space dedicated to startup founders and technology hackers. Our goal is to create a space for startup founders to come together and work in an open and supportive environment, encouraging collaboration and networking that will improve and accelerate the development of new technology companies in British Columbia.

This isn’t just a workspace – it’s a club dedicated to helping founders accelerate their work. In addition to providing a space to talk and hack, we’re rounding up all of the mentors and investors we’ve worked with over the past two years, and convinced them to each hold regular office hours in the Garage, during which you can tap into their experience and networks to improve your project and accelerate your work. Check out the schedule of mentor office hours, and if you’re a Garage Member, you can schedule a chat with any of them.

Reactions

Mike Edwards, SMKF Attendee, on the White Belt session:

Dave O’s talk was great. I have already implemented some of the strategies with my companies. Dave O is a wealth of information – entertaining with great practical application…..I can feel a book coming…

Dave is always a joy to listen to – I’ve seen him speak at a few different conferences – so I was eager to hear what he had to say in session number three: Social Marketing Kung Fu, Purple Belt – Release Day. His talks are always full of interesting tidbits and useful information, and this one was definitely no different.

Globally speaking, HootSuite is on the move. We previously profiled its crowdsourced translation environment – along with 103 others – in a report on how organizations are harnessing the talent of linguistically diverse online communities. The company is making several announcements this week about enhanced access for users who speak different languages and reside in different parts of the planet. We spoke with HootSuite’s Marketing Director, Dave Olson (@daveohoots) to learn more.
Yesterday, HootSuite heralded the arrival of the Spanish version of its web dashboard with a bilingual blog post. The company also released an infographic depicting usage in numerous parts of the Spanish-speaking world.

Why did HootSuite choose crowdsourcing over conventional translation methods? “We did try them,” Olson explains, “but HootSuite includes a lot of specialized social media-specific vocabulary which our users understand best since they use and talk about the tool with their local friends and colleagues. We think this real-world knowledge provides the best translations.”

According to Olson, the crowdsourced translation project was launched in August 2010, and the company quickly saw traction in Spanish for localization of the mobile platforms. However, major movement did not begin with the Spanish version of their web platform until they hired a Spanish-speaking employee to rally the troops and ensure progress. Our report discussed the fact that HootSuite is doing some unique things with crowdsourced translation – for example, they allow users not only to suggest languages for crowdsourcing, but to actually vote on which languages to do next.

HootSuite’s crowdsourced translation work also has broader social importance. As Olson points out: “Before we had the translation tool built, our iPhone developer (@richerd) noticed that someone wanted an Arabic version and offered to translate it. Richerd programmed the right-to-left display and worked around some unique pluralization conventions and we released the first localized dashboard for Arabic. Months later, when the crisis in Egypt erupted, our tool was a huge help to people on the ground.” As we noted in a previous post, crowdsourced translation is what enabled social media to play such an important role in Egypt.

Olson shared another compelling example. Shortly after HootSuite released the translation tool, the company was contacted by a group in Wales that wanted to work on the translation as part of a special day to preserve the Welsh language. “They didn’t make too much progress, but the idea of combining this traditional language with modern technology was inspiring to us,” he said, adding that the long Welsh words were tough on the product layout.

The power of technology to breathe new life into endangered languages is a phenomenon we’ve been writing about for years, most recently in our discussions with Google and Microsoft in the run-up to International Mother Language Day and in a longer interview with David Harrison.

HootSuite’s announcement shows that high-tech giants aren’t the only ones making a significant difference in the lives of underserved linguistic communities.

Customers are part of your culture. By inviting them to participate in your campaigns and community, you can speed progress, gain candid market insight, and have some fun. In this seminar, Dave will share tips about wrangling your passionate users to help with specific tasks for mutual benefit. Tips and tactics will include: understanding motivations, providing rewards, and organizing disappearing task teams while avoiding “cat herding” and conflicts.

On Wednesday, April 27th, I sat in on my first startup talk at the Bootup Garage. Dave Olson, Director of Marketing at Hootsuite, came in to do his third talk in a series aptly named Social Marketing Kung Fu (#smkf).

Dave is always a joy to listen to – I’ve seen him speak at a few different conferences – so I was eager to hear what he had to say in session number three: Social Marketing Kung Fu, Purple Belt – Release Day. His talks are always full of interesting tidbits and useful information, and this one was definitely no different.

I jotted down a few notes to share with you, but you can also find Dave’s notes on getting your Purple Belt here.

What to Release

Should be something substantial, or a few things bundled together and released around the same time.

Reach out to the media that you want to cover your story: RT them, comment on their stories, add them to twitter lists, etc.

Get to know them, and what they write about.

Personally invite them to join your media e-mail list.

When you send them info, make their life easy. Respect their time.

Spoon feed them the story, but never be condescending.

Craft Stories

Take 3 important talking points, and craft them into different forms.

Tell them why your story matters!

Get quotes from your customers, not your CEO (unless it’s a special circumstance, where a quote from the CEO is appropriate).

Putting a boiler plate “About” section at the bottom of a press release is unnecessary and a waste of space. Link to your website/blog instead.

Tune your vocab. Make it active, not passive. Lose the buzz words, and keep your vocab as consistent as possible.

Include image(s) to support your story, so they use your image and not their own.

Line up Dominoes &/or House of Cards

Constantly keep your media kit up to date. If you have one page on your website, this should be it.

Thursday before the release: Send an internal memo to your team to share the master plan. Include your 3 main talking points, who you’re telling, and why it matters.

Monday 1PM: Local press release, & media preview e-mail. Include assets, like an infographic, if possible. Make them feel like they are getting the story first.

You can also send a preview e-mail to your key clients, to keep them in the loop, and ultimately, make them feel special.

Tuesday 5AM: Scheduled blog post. Make everything point here, so it answers any questions people may have. This way you are controlling the conversation.

Next comes Twitter & Facebook updates, a general e-mail to clients, and a wire release (with links, tags, etc.) Keep the Facebook update light and airy. You don’t want it to become your main feedback channel.

Tuesday 9AM: Make sure your dominoes have fallen into place! You can also update any LinkedIn groups, Forums, Q & A sites like Quora, Formspring, etc.

Tuesday 11AM: Optionally, you can host a webinar, an hour at most, to go over any details that go along with the release.

Schedule any interviews requested by the media.

Then…

LISTEN
REPLY
THANK
SHARE
REPEAT

Prepare for the haters

If you comment on articles right away and thank the author for sharing your story, you may prevent a good portion of negative comments, because they know you’re there listening.

Prepare some stock comment copy for the trolls, so that you don’t take their criticism personally.

Finally

Thursday: Send a News Round-up. Share your favourite coverage from the release. If someone has created a video tutorial on your product, make sure to include that. Don’t forget to trackback to those articles.

Why can’t I be just like Charlie? No one needs to know who I am. I am not the important one in the equation – it is the startup, the entrepreneur…always. I am just a tool, one of many, that the entrepreneur needs to achieve success.

I was happy with this situation. I was funding startups; I was providing good advice; I was introducing people to a growing list of mentors; I was a cog in the journey from idea to business. In short, I was doing what I wanted.

It is hard work to keep up a public profile. Do I ask a question on Quora or answer a question; Do I tweet my blog or blog my tweet; Do I need to find an interesting picture every time I want to write about something…. It takes time, a great deal of time.

Is it the best use of my time? I would much rather meet great people, explore interesting ideas, put together killer teams.

And – you put yourself out there. Some say – The Internet is written in ink. A potential partner, an investor or a mentor could read a post and say, ‘what an idiot, I want no part of this dude.’

Hell, I know I will read an old post and cringe at the naiveté, the incomplete thought process, the ernest writing…

Is it worth it?

The counter argument:

I can’t find you.

Who have you worked with.

Why should I take your money.

Who are you again

You are doing good work, people should know..(..I am not sure if anyone actually said that…:)

etc.

But over time the cracks started to appear in my argument.

I did get tired of explaining who I was. I was embarrassed by half completed LinkedIn profiles. Julie wanted me to quit talking about it and just do it. Mack got tired of fielding phone calls – who is this guy? Maura started to get exasperated by the thought of having to tell my story one more time.

And I was listening to guys like Dave Olson – talking about amplification.

It got me to thinking. How about I get my insecurities out of the way and think about the entrepreneurs and startups that I have the pleasure of working with. If even one of my posts gets noticed and aids in scoring a contract, a developer or some extra financing it will be so, so worth the effort.

So – LinkedIn is now more complete, AngelList is confirming commitments, about.me lets people know what I look like, HootSuite is set up to listen and amplify, and this blog will start to let people know how and what I think….

So, Is it worth it?

Ultimately – yes

Will it be any good? Who knows…..success is about showing up.

Whatever you think you can do or believe that you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.

If I had an all time favorite people in Vancouver list, Dave Olson, the Community Director for Hootsuite, would be on it.

He’s engaging, worldly, kind-hearted and always willing to share what he has learned with others. And so, when I asked Dave to be a Mentor for Bootup Garage,he didn’t even hesitate. However, instead of hosting regular mentor office hours, Dave wanted to put together a series of social marketing talks for startups. Yes, please!

On Wednesday, January 26 – Dave delivered his first Social Marketing (#smkf) presentation at Bootup and as expected, it was chock full of practical nuggets, steps and interesting stories to help attendees start building their own social marketing toolkit.

“Dave O’s talk was great. I have already implemented some of the strategies with my companies. Dave O is a wealth of information – entertaining with great practical application…..I can feel a book coming…” Mike Edwards, SMKF Attendee

Below are some of my notes from Dave O’s talk and you can also check out his notes over here:

Getting Started

Document everything you Do. From Day 1, Dave stressed that entrepreneurs should document everything and have one place to share all of their “collective intelligence,” such as an internal wiki. Writing everything down will help you stay focused and remind you what it is you set out to achieve.

Do not plan much farther out than 6 months.

Define the roll of each person in the company. This will help people focus on and take ownership over certain tasks

Naming Your Company/Product

Coming up with a name for your company that has an available URL is not an easy task.

Define what it is your product does first.

Start playing around with words that are easy to say, spell and remember.

Ask friends or your community for feedback or ideas. For instance, HootSuite crowdsourced their name.

Describe Your Product

Try and define your product in 3 words. For example, Hootsuite at first chose “Professional Twitter Client” as it’s 3 word description and now defines itself as a “Social Media Dashboard.”

Take those 3 words and expand on them to create a 100 word description.

Reach out to users and get feedback and watch what terms they are searching for. It is important to be using the same terms and descriptions that your users/customers are.

Start Listening

Create Lists. Start following the people who care about your product as well as watching your competitors.

By listening and asking specific questions, you will start to build relationships with your customers.

Respond and participate in the conversation.

Each community is different. For example, your customers may act differently on Facebook vs. Linked In. Watch this and communicate accordingly.

Define what you want to get out of each of the social media channels you are using.

Media Kit

The first page you should create on your website is a media kit page.

Make it easy for people to write about you and tell your story.

Your kit should include artwork, logo, colors, typeface, TM with specific guidelines on how to use.

Be sure to have multiple descriptions that writers can snag to use in articles and posts such as a 100 or 500 word description.

Colorful screenshots or infographics like this one are a great resource for writers.

Keep your kit up to date and fresh.

Be Loud

Now that you have defined who you are and what you do, start telling the world.

Don’t wait until you launch. Become an active participant in the community you are trying to reach.

If it is not on the Internet, it didn’t happen! So – Blog, Flickr, Tweet etc. starting right now.

When someone writes an article or post mentioning you or your area of expertise, COMMENT. It shows you are paying attention and care about your community and the people, who are taking the time to write about you and use your product.

Create 3-4 touchpoints to an article. For example, Dave will comment on an article, social bookmark it and add it to an RSS Feed = juicy, indexable goodness.

Hashtag everything. Topics, brands, acronyms – be creative and always remember to listen to your audience and be consistent with your message.

Dave O will be back in the Garage next month to deliver another his 2nd Social Marketing Kung Fu preso. In the meantime, please share your notes, questions and tips in the comments below for other startup founders.